Month: June 2021

Why We No Longer Strive to Be Location Independent

For much of the life of this blog (five years in October?!), I have talked about my family’s desire to be location independent. When I first began blogging, Mr. ThreeYear and I considered the possibility of moving abroad, teaching in international schools, or becoming digital nomads.

In the end, we moved to North Carolina. Although we were technically location independent when we moved, we have since made decisions that tie us firmly to one area of the world. We bought a house, I got a location-dependent job there, and I now have a second location-dependent job that I hope to stay in until at least both boys graduate high school (in May of 2028, which is crazy close for us to be empty nesters! Whaaahh!!).

We haven’t talked about, or really even thought about, moving, moving internationally, or otherwise taking advantage of location independence in three years.

Why did our goals and dreams change so much?

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Boundaries

I recently listened to an excellent podcast on Boundaries, We Can Do Hard Things (Episode 2). In it, author Glennon Doyle and her sister Amanda Doyle discuss setting boundaries in many parts of your life (one thing in particular they said really stuck out to me, “You are not responsible for people’s feelings about the boundaries you have set.” How great is that piece of advice?).

I admit, I am not someone who has strong boundaries, or even completely understands the concept of boundaries. My boundary-setting is apparently so bad, my friend’s husband recently gave me the book The Book of No: 365 Ways to Say It and Mean It.

So this blog post is my exploration of and attempt to better understand boundaries, specifically boundaries around time, organization, and finances.

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Our Kids’ School: Next Year

Hello! I am not dead, as I hope you’ll be glad to hear. I’ve been overwhelmingly busy this spring with school (which coincides with students going back full time and my mornings no longer being quite as flexible to blog).

This post is a follow up to my post Why We Put Our Kids in Private School. In it, I detailed our decision to put our kids in an expensive private school (where I worked) and outlined our thought process to get there.

If you had asked me five years ago whether or not I would put our kids in private school, I would have laughed in your face. Then again, my ability to imagine a global pandemic was limited. If this past year has taught me anything, it’s that we have to make the best decisions we can, in real time, given the unique set of circumstances we face.

We chose to put both boys in private school for this school year and they had an incredible year. Truly, it was magical.

Now, let’s talk about next year.

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